WHAT THE MOLYNEUX DRAINS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2189, 9 January 1886, Page 2

WHAT THE MOLYNEUX DRAINS.

Dr Von Haast has made an interesting ■ '■ calculation respecting the drainage area ot the Molyneux River, lie estimates that the glacial, action over'the area which the Molyneux River and its old beds have ■; drained to a point twenty-five miles below the junction of the Kawarua River (outlet of Lake'Wakatipu) equals ah area of at least 100 miles by 50, or 5,000 square miles. Heconsiders, from the ease with "' which the locks are broken and crushed,, that there has been a denudation averag. ing at least 3,oooftin thickness of rock' over the area.' The usual estimate is one. , million of toils of rock to the square mile,' one-foot mthickness; so that t'he result is a- multiplication of 5,000 by 1,000,000 by; 3,000, giving a result of 16,000,000,000,000; or fifteen billion of lons.,- ,',' Inconceivable as this is," ha considers it "not too high." All this of course has passed "through the lower valley of the Molyneux." The mind is incapable of-realising the vastness' of this quantity ground, down «nd passed through an oporation analogous to puddling and cradling. It is as if * million of Chinese, each disposing of a ton a day for 300 days in the vear, had been at work for 50,060 ui'd 'eft the washing up of gold behind'.them in the ridges of the cradle—tho old and new beds of the river. Supposing the. rock* averaged a grain of gold to tho ton, which t Professor Black says is to be obtained J from sea water v \ve have a total amount A of gold, calculating 3,0001b tro>. to tivjM ton, of 1,300,000 tons, worth, at tltrdH guineas only the ounce, close upon naHH hundred thousand millions of pounfßS sterling. Tho total value of gold in jflH in the world is probably far below t\HN amount, Yet the Olutha Yalloy i 3 a mer«| dot in the area of gold-producing country« in the world. It may be, and probably is, a dot far above the averago, but still it is very small in proportion to tho whole. —'Lyttelton Times.'